2
Introduction to the Practice of Dialogic OD
To help introduce the practice of Dialogic OD we begin with two stories about how each of us stumbled into it in our practice. First, Gervase:
The first experience I had that I would now call Dialogic OD was with Charlie Seashore in 1987. My partner had asked him to work with our client, the more than eighty professionals of the quality department at Chevrolet/Pontiac/GM of Canada (CPC) divisional headquarters. Charlie asked them to self-organize into the following four groups, in whatever way each of them defined themselves: parents, grandparents, children, and black sheep. He then asked each group to take a turn sitting in the center of the room, talking about their experience of the department. The consultants asked them questions, and there was an open chair for anyone else to enter and talk with the group. We spent that morning in very powerful conversation.
My diagnostic mindset at the time marveled at how this intervention allowed for the collection and processing of data in the same moment. It collapsed the action research process quite substantially. How much more efficient than interviewing individuals, summarizing, and feeding it back, to then try and create this kind of conversation! Later, I began to question whether any feedback process could re-create the quality of that conversation, which was more exploratory and emergent than anything I could create in a data feedback meeting. Even later I came to think that having any consultant in the middle of communication between people or groups in organizations is unlikely to do any good. The only people who can fix A and B’s relationship are A and B, and acting as a go-between of information and problem solving creates, at best (or worst), a job for life.
Now, with a Dialogic Mindset, I look at that intervention quite differently. I notice how the image of department as family privileges some narratives and mutes others. I notice how the design surfaces a multitude of narratives about the same issues, some very different from each other, in a relatively safe way. I notice how it supports greater expression of the emotional and the irrational wants in people’s experience, and greater acceptance of differences. I notice how the image of family allows for a multitude of people with different identities and purpose to still identify with the group as a whole. I notice how it invites both differentiation of individuals and integration among those with common identities and stories. I notice how it does not create conversations for convergence or catalyzing action but it can create conversations that heal relationships.
Since 1989 I have worked with and studied Appreciative Inquiry and large group interventions, and come to believe that hosting large groups of people who care about something can lead to emergent, improvisational, and transformational change on a scale and at a speed that normal action research cannot muster. I have also come to believe that everyone, at all times, is having a different experience, and has a different story about the organization. Trying to agree on the “right” story (diagnosis) of the organization is an exercise in privileging one narrative over another, and not really that useful for promoting change.
Now Bob:
My first orientation to Dialogic OD came in the decade 1986–1996 when I began paying attention to and working with metaphors and covert processes in my consulting practice. One day I was talking with Linda Ackerman (now Linda Ackerman-Anderson) about her recent article differentiating development, transition, and transformation types of change (Ackerman, 1986). I wondered about what I called a fourth type of change exemplified by a phrase I had heard for years in my consulting practice: “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” Later, it struck me that when people used that phrase they were implicitly thinking of the organization as a machine and whether or not it needed fixing or maintaining. And the name for that type of change became “maintenance.” From that moment on I found myself “deep listening” with a third ear for the explicit and implicit metaphors people were using to talk about whatever change they were involved in. More often than not, I thought they were explicitly calling for one kind of dramatic change, but implicitly describing it using machinelike “fix and maintain” language. For example, “We need to completely transform our business,” but “Because we need to get things up and running quickly, let’s not waste our time looking at things that have been working successfully in the past.” To me, this incongruity led to incongruous demands and commitments (e.g., total transformation in three months with no real commitment of resources) and therefore the likelihood of an unsuccessful change effort. So I began acting on the metaphors and implicit word imagery people were using, both during contracting and later during engagements and interventions of one kind or another. Bob: “Gee, it sounds like you are looking for a quick fix, is that right? Client: Well, yes, no, maybe. …” And, then we would have a very different kind of interaction than we had had up until that point.
Now, in 2014, from a Dialogic OD Mindset I would say I was teaching myself a form of Dialogic Process Consultation where my dominant focus is on how metaphors, storylines, and discursive processes shape individual and organizational realities and responses. This mindset also has meant relaxing or altering some of my Diagnostic OD ways of consulting, including the need for “valid data collection” in advance of “intervening” and facilitation toward a specified outcome. Instead, I find myself more interested, and most effective, when I am drawing attention to and confronting deeply held conceptual metaphors or storylines that are implicitly framing experience. From a dialogic perspective I am seeking to “disrupt” the prevailing storyline (draw attention to or break the taken-for-granted frame) while creating a context or container that is safe enough for people to explore new possibilities. In my case this is often through consideration of alternative conceptual metaphors that serve as generative images allowing new storylines and possibilities to emerge. For example, instead of talking about how to fix the organization, I invite people to talk about how to transform it—how to renew, or reimagine, or even reengineer it. I also find that I am doing deep listening and raising alternative framings from the very first contact. These early “interventions” often serve to help reshape the direction of the consultation, suggest where deeply held implicit beliefs are preventing innovation, and allow new possibilities to emerge.
In the rest of this chapter we intend to convey a more concrete sense of what Dialogic OD practitioners do and how they think about change. Beyond our introductory stories we will not be talking about how either of us does OD from a Dialogic Mindset. We both do it very differently, and we suspect that just about every successful Dialogic OD practitioner does it differently. Instead we will identify the basic similarities in practice that flow from a Dialogic Mindset regardless of what specific approach is being used.
Throughout the book we will refer to “practitioners” and “consultants.” Anyone in any role who is working on changes to increase effectiveness and vitality can be a Dialogic OD practitioner—not just consultants. Leaders, managers, staff professionals, activists, community organizers can operate out of a Dialogic OD Mindset. A consultant is one kind of practitioner, who contracts with organizations to provide Dialogic OD expertise. Most of the material in this book is applicable to all practitioners, but sometimes more relevant to consultants.
What Do Dialogic OD Practitioners Do?
As discussed in Chapter 1, the practice of Dialogic OD follows from a shift in mindsets about organizations, change, and consulting heavily influenced by the interpretive and complexity sciences and practitioner innovations since the 1980s. For many, this shift requires both learning and unlearning OD premises and practices. Both of us, as our stories show, were educated in the Diagnostic OD Mindset and needed to unlearn or let go of core diagnostic assumptions when we began adopting more dialogic practices.
Some Core Differences in Diagnostic and Dialogic OD Practice
To illustrate our point let’s look more closely at three interrelated core assumptions that help form Diagnostic OD thinking and practices:
1. Organizations and organizational behavior reflect an underlying, objective reality that includes the factors and forces causing the present situation. Diagnosis and analysis of these factors and forces using behavioral science theories and methods should precede any interventions intended to achieve a more desired future state.
2. Organizational change can be planned and managed using processes of intentionally moving from one semistable equilibrium to another through acts of unfreezing, movement, and refreezing.
3. The consultant collaborates with members of the organization, but stands apart from them in order to be an independent, neutral facilitator of diagnostic and intervention methods.
In contrast, and to reemphasize parts of what we said in Chapter 1, the Dialogic OD Mindset leads to quite different orientations to the practice of OD along similar dimensions:
1. Organizations and organizational behavior are socially created realities resulting from the ongoing interactions of members, stakeholders, and interested parties. Processes of inquiry, especially reflexive and generative inquiry, can disrupt the status quo and create new awareness, new knowledge, and new narratives that have the potential to transform the organization.
2. The “everyday social construction of reality” is continuously being created and re-created through human interactions. Change is happening all the time, though usually at a pace too slow to notice. Transformation, a much more sudden and noticeable kind of change, results when there are significant shifts in language, conversations, and communication patterns that allow for or encourage the emergence of new possibilities. Because any human interaction can produce unexpected results, organizing is a process of ongoing complexity, flux, and emergence, and specific outcomes can be intended but rarely controlled.
3. The Dialogic OD consultant collaborates by intentionally becoming part of the ongoing interactions and emerging narratives that are reshaping and transforming the organization. Consequently the consultant needs to be self-reflexive (aware of the impact he or she is having on others and on the system) about what he or she does or does not do and how those actions and inactions contribute to organizational meaning making. A consultant can never stand objectively apart from the system. Both doing and nondoing convey meaning.
4. The complexity of issues leaders and organizations face and the inherent unpredictability of what will happen when lots of different people are involved means that application of “best practices” or preexisting knowledge to identify and then implement change is unlikely to be successful. This has been described by Heifetz (1998) as the difference between technical problems and adaptive challenges and by Snowden (2000) as the difference between complicated and complex decision situations (see Chapter 6 for more description of these models). Dialogic OD practitioners believe that dialogic processes are the most effective way to deal with adaptive, complex challenges.
Table 2.1 provides a summary of these differences.
Although there are many more differences and similarities between Diagnostic and Dialogic OD, we believe these are three of the most important for understanding how and why Dialogic OD practice differs from the way OD has historically been taught. We must acknowledge that there are considerable differences in approaches and emphases among practitioners, including the contributors to this book. Some of these differences are attributable to the background, experiences, and interests of the individual practitioner, and some to the fact that the contours of dialogic practice are just now being identified and described. Two important differences are how directly the practitioner acts to influence the narratives guiding individual and organizational behavior and how bounded or structured the dialogic engagement process will be. In this chapter (and the book) you will see these two continua show up as choice points for Dialogic OD practice.
Table 2.1 Contrasting Frames for OD Practice
Diagnostic OD |
Dialogic OD |
|
Influence Organizational Reality via: |
Objective, (scientific) diagnosis and analysis of existing facts and forces before intervening |
Social inquiry processes that themselves create new awareness, knowledge, and possibilities |
Change involves: |
Application of known expertise to identify, plan, and manage the implementation of episodic change: unfreeze-movement-refreeze |
Engagement of stakeholders in ways that create disruptions and shifts in ongoing patterns of stability leading to emergence of new possibilities |
Consul ant Stance: |
Neutral facilitator who stands apart from and acts on the system |
Involved facilitator (or host) who becomes part of and acts with the system |
One way to illustrate what Dialogic OD practitioners and consultants do is through the following three overlapping contexts (Pearce and Pearce, 2000): (1) dialogic interaction facilitation (working in the moment to support, challenge, or otherwise impact a person or group’s dialogic interactions), (2) meeting and event design and facilitation (creating a dialogic structure and process to accomplish the purpose of a meeting), and (3) strategic process design and facilitation (creating dialogic structures and processes for a series of meetings and things that happen outside of meetings to support the purposes of a change engagement). We will discuss each in turn. Key skills required for each context are discussed in Chapter 9.
Dialogic Interactions
During a consulting engagement Dialogic OD practitioners will involve participants in becoming more aware of the stories, narratives, and patterns of discourse they are embedded in and that are creating and re-creating the way things are for them and the organization (e.g., Oliver, 2005; Swart, 2013). Some will do this explicitly (e.g., Cooperrider, Whitney, and Stavros, 2008) and others to a lesser extent or more indirectly (e.g., Owen, 2008). In either case, all assume that change requires a change in the language, narratives, and patterns of communicative interactions keeping things the way they are; all employ practices and methods to encourage new possibilities to emerge. Some will do this by focusing primarily on changing the prevailing discourse and allowing that to lead to new, perhaps unspecified, outcomes (e.g., Marshak, 2013; Shaw, 2002; Storch and Ziethen, 2013; Swart, 2013), while others focus on both discourse and the changes in action that should follow from that (e.g., Cooperrider, 2012; Nissen and Corrigan, 2009).
The Dialogic OD practitioner knows that conversations and interactions in formal settings as well as in hallways, at lunch, and around gathering spots are critical to the social construction of reality and the sharing of stories that shape meaning making. When working in this context, the practitioner pays attention to the language (stories, metaphors, emphases, omissions, etc.) being used in all interactions. The practitioner will also notice the ideas favored by those with power, ideas coming into acceptance, and ideas that are falling out of favor (Schön, 1973). For example, in one organization Appreciative Inquiry might be a new idea gathering positive interest, while in another it could be an old idea that “we tried but it didn’t work.” Believing that a round of appreciative interviews would be very useful for some group at this time, the dialogic practitioner (manager or consultant) might introduce a proposal using different language and word imagery. Where there is interest, practitioners might advance it as Appreciative Inquiry. Given a lack of interest, they might not mention Appreciative Inquiry at all but simply explain what would be done or introduce it using a different descriptor—we have heard it called “right analysis” among other things.
The practitioner will also try to become aware of the narratives (see Chapters 4 and 16 for discussions of narrative and discourse) that are privileged by those with position and power—those storylines that are acceptable or even required to be used at formal organizational gatherings (Mumby, 1987; Sonenshein, 2010). For example, he or she will note whether this organization always uses “impact on the bottom line” as the reason for doing or not doing anything. In paying attention to the prevailing storylines, the practitioner may become aware of undiscussables: marginalized or repressed narratives, unconscious “tapes,” the negative unintended consequences of current policies and actions, and so on (Argyris, 1990; Marshak, 2006). In his or her interactions with others in this context, a dialogic practitioner might invite organization members to reflect on the implications of their current language and discourse, reinforce a particular narrative, or perhaps try to challenge a dominant storyline with the intention of creating space for new possibilities to emerge.
Because dialogic practitioners believe that the social construction of reality occurs during every conversation anywhere in the organization, they are constantly alert to how stability and flexibility are being positioned and described. Every conversation is an opportunity both to maintain and to change which ideas are in good currency, which narratives predominate, what is seen as good, right, and worthy of collective action—in other words, the basic premises guiding how people organize themselves and work together (Stacey, 2001; Chapter 7). Every conversation is part of the flow of interactions through which social reality gets created, maintained, and changed (Barrett, Thomas, and Hocevar, 1995; Ford and Ford, 1995; Gergen and Thatchenkery, 2004).
One aspect of language the practitioner may pay particular attention to is the metaphors, generative images (see Chapter 5 for a definition of “generative images”), and storylines that are shaping how something is considered and acted upon. These might be explicitly described or be a more tacit, organizing theme—what the cognitive linguists Lakoff and Johnson (1999) refer to as conceptual metaphors in the cognitive unconscious. Metaphors are one place in which, as described in Bob’s story above, a well-placed word can have profound effects (Marshak, 1993, 2004; Srivastva and Barrett, 1988).
Dialogic Process Consulting
Drawing on one of the core generative images of organization development, process consulting, leads us to an explicit consideration of working with dialogic interactions as a form of Dialogic Process Consulting. The concept and methods of process consultation are a foundation of OD, especially as distinct from expert consultation. In process consultation, the consultant stays mostly out of the “whats” while helping the client to better understand the “hows.” As defined by Schein, “process consultation is a set of activities on the part of the consultant that help the client to perceive, understand, and act upon the process events that occur in the client’s environment” (1969, p. 9). Drawing on his education as an experimental social psychologist and experiences in the 1950s and 1960s at Bethel, Maine, with the National Training Laboratories network of researchers and trainers (Schein, 2014), Schein summarized what had emerged at that time as the most crucial human processes for effective organization performance: (1) communication, (2) member roles and functions, (3) group problem solving and decision making, (4) group norms and group growth, (5) leadership and authority, and (6) intergroup cooperation and competition. Process consultation in Dialogic OD builds on the foundational idea of helping clients to better perceive, understand, and act on process events, but focuses more on reflexive inquiry and “dialogic processes” of social construction and organizational meaning making.
The range of discursive processes a dialogic process consultant might pay attention to includes:
Communication processes, like those identified by Schein, that are primarily focused on who is conveying what information to whom, and in what ways.
Prevailing and influential narratives shaping how people think and act. For example, the consultant may notice the influence of narratives about the importance of “shareholder value” or the “bottom line” on an individual’s or group’s consideration of options and their resulting choices. This would also include noticing the dialogic interaction processes that reinforce these narratives or exclude alternative storylines.
Different narratives, storylines, and organizational communications at one level or segment of the organization (e.g., at headquarters) that may differ from and affect another segment or level of the organization (e.g., the field). These effects can include, importantly, who gains and who is disadvantaged by the prevailing or “privileged” narratives.
The ways in which conversations that differ from the prevailing wisdom are restricted or encouraged; for example, the degree to which a diversity of participants and perspectives are included or excluded in key organizational decisions.
How conversations unfold—the sequence of what is discussed and in what ways and how that may influence participants’ thinking and emotions.
Processes of generativity, especially how to foster new images to influence the ongoing construction and reconstruction of social reality.
In the dialogic process practitioner’s mindset, organizational behavior is not created solely by the objective exchange of information or correction of “misperceptions.” It is created by the self and socially constructed images and stories people hold about their situations, the meaning making going on before, during, and after events, and the extent to which those things limit or nurture generativity and the emergence of new possibilities (Bushe, 2001; 2013a; Marshak, 2004; Grant and Marshak, 2011). It is also created by changes in the relationships and networks among people in the organization (Cross, Ernst, and Pasmore, 2013; Pérez-Nordtvedt, O’Brien, and Rasheed 2013) and the new possibilities that get created when new people are included in conversations, new connections are made, and old relations are reframed (Kyriakidou, 2011; Marshak and Grant, 2008).
Two Approaches to Dialogic Process Consulting
There is a wide range of activities that could be considered dialogic process consulting, forming a continuum from episodic to immersive change practices. Episodic practices use events to destabilize semistable patterns and alter or amplify ongoing discursive processes to encourage the emergence of new possibilities or patterns. Immersive practices do not rely on designed events, but instead join into the preexisting flow of conversations to alter or amplify the social construction of reality and encourage the emergence of new possibilities (see Chapter 17). In brief, the two types are:
1. Dialogic process consulting and more episodic change. This involves interactions with individuals or teams wherein potentially limiting mindsets are identified and confronted with narratives, stories, metaphors, images, slogans, symbols, and so forth to generate new thinking and possibilities (e.g., Oliver, 2005; Swart, 2013; Chapter 4). This type of Dialogic PC is widely practiced, but perhaps with less visibility or clarity in the broader OD community about what is being done and why. Chapters 8, 11, and 16 provide different examples of what can take place in an episodic dialogic process consultation. More structured methods tend to use language-based means to promote recognition of limiting patterns, followed by cognitive restructuring and emergence of new ways of thinking and acting. How to implement this process is a focus of Chapter 16; some methods include asking individuals or teams to write or rewrite scripts about their situation (Inman and Thompson, 2013; Oswick, et al., 2000); introducing new words, phrases, or images to induce new thought patterns (Storch and Ziethen, 2013); listening for and confronting conceptual metaphors or storylines that are implicitly limiting possibilities and choice (Marshak, 2013; Oliver and Fitzgerald, 2013); and asking an individual or team to draw or sculpt their situation and then tell the story of what is happening and, perhaps, what they want to have happen (Barry, 1994). In all these approaches, the practitioner employs methods for recognizing how current narratives, discourses, and conversations are creating stable patterns of limited possibilities, and then seeks to elicit new language and stories to encourage new possibilities. For example, a client group unaware that they continually discussed their situation in terms that implied they were alone on the front lines of a war had that imagery reflected back with the invitation to consider other possible scenarios for conceptualizing their situation (Marshak, 2004).
2. Dialogic process consultation and immersive change. This involves unstructured and often ongoing interactions with individuals, teams, or larger sets of people whereby the intent is to change the regularly occurring conversations and conversational patterns (who, what, when, where, how) and thereby encourage the self-organizing emergence of new patterns, commitments, and ideas. This type of Dialogic Process Consultation, described in detail in Chapter 17, is less well known in the United States and perhaps less practiced, although its use is spreading. Based on concepts of complexity, meaning making, emergence, and self-organization, these dialogic process activities assume that relationships and organizations are continuously recreating themselves through the ongoing conversations that occur at all levels and parts of an organization (Goldsmith, Hebabi, and Nishii, 2010; Shaw, 2002; Chapter 7). Any shifts in the nature of these conversations (for example, in their participants, emphases, or patterns) will encourage incremental shifts that lead groups to self-organize in new and different ways. Specially structured events to shift from a current state to a more desired future state are not used (Ray and Goppelt, 2013). Instead the consultant joins up with an organization that is assumed to be in the continuous process of becoming, and seeks to accentuate differences from any ongoing dialogic patterns that may be blocking or limiting the organization’s ability to evolve, or the emergence of new patterns.
Coaching
Finally, coaching is a particular, specialized kind of one-on-one interaction a Dialogic OD practitioner (consultant or manager) might engage in. In coaching interactions the Dialogic OD practitioner brings the intent to help people break out of self-limiting beliefs and stories, to help them identify the stories they want to live into, and to re-story their relationships with others. There are numerous practices and perspectives that a dialogic coach might incorporate into his or her practice: family systems therapy, solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy and narrative coaching, gestalt theory, dialogue, double-loop learning, coordinated management of meaning, relational being, and clear leadership, to name a few. The chapters on coaching (Chapter 16) and transformative learning (Chapter 11) provide useful advice for the dialogic practitioner in a coaching context. Here, too, attention to how clients create and re-create social reality and self-identity through the metaphors, images, and stories they tell others and themselves is a central focus.
Meetings, Events, and Strategic Change Engagements
Dialogic OD practitioners may use more or less structured designs and processes (or both). More structured Dialogic OD involves one or more bounded meetings or events. These are designed to enhance relationships and enable greater exploration of differences that foster creativity and engagement. Generative images and questions (see Chapter 12) are often used to elicit new ideas. Sometimes these are given by leaders or consultants, but most often the processes used during the event are intended to stimulate the emergence of new ideas and generative images (see Barrett and Cooperrider, 1990; Bushe, 2013b for examples). Stimulated by the new possibilities and generative images, participants will see options for action that did not occur to them before, making new ways to change and new outcomes possible. Ideally, participants will make personal, voluntary commitments to new behaviors and projects. After the events, new thinking, new connections, and new conversations will encourage more and more people to make new choices in their day-to-day interactions. There may also be self-organized group projects coming out of an event (see Chapter 15), but the transformation in the social construction of reality comes primarily from participants developing new ways of making sense of their worlds that are grounded in new discursive patterns and processes. In other words, the social system evolves through the emergence of a shift in the collective narrative.
Meetings and Event Design
As emphasized in Chapters 8 and 9, Dialogic OD practitioners who operate out of more structured approaches utilize skills in designing events in which new and useful conversations will take place and designing strategic processes composed of multiple events (Pearce and Pearce, 2000). Meetings, which include any grouping of people who work together for a day or less with a purpose or agenda, are the lifeblood of most organizations. Yet most people find most meetings boring and unproductive. There is no reason for that—one of the gifts of Dialogic OD knowledge is how to run great meetings. From the Art of Convening to World Café, just about every Dialogic OD approach offers ways to make gatherings more effective. What the dialogic practitioner focuses on in designing and facilitating meetings and events is: (1) how to engage the whole person in things that really matter to them, (2) how to get people engaged in conversations that matter to everyone, (3) how to help people stay alert to the ways in which their conversations are limiting and enabling possibilities, and (4) how to ensure the new relationships, networks, ideas, and energy created at the events are sustained and amplified after the events.
Team focus. One important focus for meetings and events is team performance, broadly defined. The Dialogic OD Mindset can help individuals with building and leading teams, both as team leader and as consultant. The dialogic leader is interested in the current metaphors and narratives that are influencing the team and team leadership, their adequacy to the team’s purpose and challenges, and patterns of interactions and communications, including whose voices and ideas are favored or marginalized. The dialogic leader is also aware of the adaptive challenges the team faces, and will use whatever dialogic processes seem best able to help the team meet those challenges. Faced with an urgent and complex issue without a clear solution, for example, he or she may utilize an Open Space or a World Café or any of the other dialogic processes listed in Table 1.2. The dialogic leader is able and willing to let go of trying to plan and control all outcomes when faced with paradoxical or wicked problems and to create conditions encouraging self-organizing processes within the team so that more adaptive ways of organizing and acting can emerge.
The Dialogic OD consultant brings interpretivist and complexity-based thinking, actions, and interventions into teams in an effort to make them “better” as defined by the team or change sponsor. Sometimes the consultant is engaged for one team-building event; other times the engagement is longer term, requiring “strategic process design”—the context we explore further below. The request for team building is often in response to a team leader’s desire for more effective “teamwork,” and a Dialogic OD consultant’s first task will be to understand what the leader actually means by that. Very often, leaders do not really want their group to work like a team with shared deliverables and interdependent tasks; what they often want is for group members to put the needs of the whole ahead of their own, to share a common purpose they feel engaged by, and perhaps to help each other be their best (Bushe, 2004).
Need for Sponsors
Especially when practitioners are involved with formal events or strategic change engagements, there is always a need for a sponsor or sponsor group who has some “ownership” of the impacted product, function, group, or organization and who employs the Dialogic OD consultant to help create change. Chapters 8 and 10 describe the process of creating the necessary collaborative relationship with sponsors. Particularly when addressing complex social issues such as education or healthcare, sponsoring groups are often composed of multiple organizations that together engage a consultant (see Chapter 14). In our experience sponsors who are most willing to consider Dialogic OD approaches usually do not know exactly what changes are wanted or how to achieve them. They are dealing with complex, adaptive issues beyond any existing technical or known solutions (Heifetz, 1998; Pascale, Milleman, and Gioja, 2001; Snowden and Boone, 2007). They may be responding to some problems or concerns, or they may have an inspiring intent or general outcome they seek, but they do not know exactly what change will address the concern or create those outcomes. During the initial meetings with the sponsors, in addition to beginning processes of reflective inquiry, exploring dialogic approaches to change, outlining roles and relationships, and so forth, the Dialogic OD consultant will work with the sponsors to identify, in general, their intentions and the range of potentially affected stakeholders who need to be engaged in the Dialogic OD process(es). At that time, it may or may not be determined that it is important to create a “steering,” “planning,” “hosting,” or “design” group that in some way represents the range of impacted stakeholders to help design the change effort. This is usually more important when the change involves a complex issue, such as transportation in a region, or when there is a desire to engage a large or very large group with multiple subgroups. It is critical for the consultant and the sponsor to agree on the intended outcomes of the change effort even if the outcome is vague and formulated along the lines of “We discover a new way of dealing with issue or opportunity X.” See Chapters 8, 10, 14, and 15 for more on working with sponsors.
Strategic Process Design
In a strategic process design, the Dialogic OD practitioner anticipates and maps out a sequence of activities and events, usually involving multiple stakeholder groups, to encourage emergent change. The consultant may do most of this work or may educate and facilitate a steering group that does it. Sometimes the request for a consultant to work with a team will require strategic process design for a sequence of events and activities. The larger and more complex the involved groups, the more a strategic process design is needed for successful change. By encouraging a voice for the multiplicity of narratives and identities that must be respected for real dialogue, emergence, and new possibilities to take place, Dialogic OD is well suited for improving the collective action of multiple groups, inside and outside organizations. Because multigroup contexts involve more people and more boundaries, they almost always require more than one meeting, event, or activity to make a substantial change and require more complex architecture for the dialogic consultation process (see Chapter 14 for more on this).
Some of the Dialogic OD approaches in Table 1.2 offer strategic process designs. For example, the Art of Hosting describes the following steps: helping the sponsor get clear about the purpose, designing the intervention, hosting the event itself, and then harvesting. Appreciative Inquiry offers the 4D model (Discovery, Dream, Design, and Deployment) with an initial “Define” establishing the “affirmative topic.” Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses. We do not know of any decision-making rubric that provides a way of judging which dialogic approach is most suited to a specific situation, although that would certainly be useful. In our experience successful Dialogic OD practitioners often favor one design model over others, but are usually proficient enough in a number of models so that they can mix, match, and mash up as the situation requires. One useful categorization of Dialogic OD approaches is the “Engagement Streams Framework” developed by Sandy Heierbacher and colleagues at the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. It categorizes some of the Dialogic OD approaches in Table 1.2 by how useful they are for exploration, conflict transformation, decision making, and collaborative action, but only lists processes applicable to community development (NCDD, 2013).
Requirements for Strategic Process Designs
Discomfort. People have to feel uncomfortable enough with the status quo to willingly sign up for transformational change. Chapter 11 discusses the importance of a “disorienting dilemma” for initiating transformative learning. One of the dialogic leader’s jobs is to ensure that people understand the risks, uncertainties, competitive threats, and market demands well enough to feel uncomfortable with the status quo, or offer a compelling and inspiring enough vision of an alternative future that they instead want to move toward. Dialogic OD practitioners codevelop strategic design processes for changing an organization with key stakeholders. How much a consultant contributes to the content of the design, as opposed to facilitating a collective process of design, varies. In some organizations the process of developing the strategic design can in itself help transform the organization when it models better meeting processes, engages people more energetically, and builds better working relationships and networks.
Steering committee. Some kind of steering committee, even if simply an informal group of advisers that reflects the larger system, is usually required by a consultant who does not know the organization well. It is often a good thing to have regardless. As discussed in Chapters 10 and 14, effective steering committees include the change sponsors and a diverse group of members designed to reflect the makeup of the target system. They have the authority to decide on the dialogic approaches, structures, and processes that will be used in the change process. Developing a steering committee into an effective change agent team is one of the first tasks of a dialogic practitioner working in multigroup or larger contexts. People come to intergroup steering committees, see each other as representatives of whatever groups they are from, and feel (to a greater or lesser extent) that they are there to represent the interests of their home group. In fact, the intergroup dilemmas causing the request for help will usually show up in the steering committee if the selection of participants has done a good job of reflecting the system to be changed. Using Dialogic OD methods, the leader or consultant helps this group get past the limiting stories they have about each other, developing personal bonds, sharing a common purpose they feel engaged by, and willingly engaging in inquiry and dialogue with each other. Doing this has many benefits in addition to building a strong team identity: when the steering committee learns what a Dialogic OD process is like, its advice becomes more useful, its experience creates a buzz and new storylines, it becomes more able to get others to attend events, and it models the way forward. Furthermore, as a few studies have noted, sometimes transforming intergroup relations in one representative group can influence relationships in the larger system (Alderfer, 1987; Bushe and Shani, 1991).
Multiple-entry processes. OD consultants go through the four entries described in Chapter 10 during the process of cocreating a strategic design with the caller, the sponsor, the management team, and the steering committee. Through these entry processes, the focus of the change project will be honed and language will be developed to fit the situation. The design is likely to involve one or more large group events, and there has to be a strategy for how to get the necessary people to attend. These events will be designed to build relationships and networks, to identify a future that is inspiring and worth putting some effort toward to the people at the event, to identify the changes most of them want, and to encourage self-initiated change by people and groups. There needs to be a plan for how the motivations and ideas generated at events will be amplified into real changes, without knowing exactly what those will be (see Chapter 15).
Application settings. Dialogic OD can be practiced in many different settings, ranging from one-on-one settings like coaching to very large and complex systems that include many organizations. A larger and more diverse system makes sponsorship more complicated, and there is a broader network of decision makers and a diversity of narratives that must be brought onboard. Sometimes an organization has the clout to ensure that a broad set of actors, such as its supply chain, will want to be engaged. For example, Walmart had the clout to use Dialogic OD processes to transform the thousands of companies in its worldwide supply chain to support its aspiration to be the most sustainable company in the world. Through a series of dialogic events that included elements of Open Space, Appreciative Inquiry, Hosting, and others, Walmart brought thousands of suppliers and experts together in many large group events to work on dozens of issues, from dealing with old newspapers to creating a measure of sustainability that could be adopted in third world countries (Laszlo, 2008). More typically, an organization will begin addressing supply chain processes by reaching out to suppliers and inviting them to attend dialogic events that focus on improving the company, and over time build the trust and interest to launch a change initiative focused on the supply chain itself.
While a full discussion is beyond the scope of this book, we would be remiss if we did not mention that Dialogic OD processes are being used to transform the world (Yeganeh and Glavas, 2008). One of the most prominent examples is the Global Compact. It began in Davos, the annual meeting of the global economic elite, in 1999, when Kofi Anan, then secretary general of the United Nations, chided business leaders for not doing enough for the world, and offered a new generative image about business and ideals. He said, “Let us choose to unite the power of markets with the strength of universal ideals. Let us choose to reconcile the creative forces of private entrepreneurship with the needs of the disadvantaged and the requirements of future generations” (Hunt, 2012). At the time, Anan did not anticipate how many would be inspired to be part of that conversation. Four years later, using a Dialogic OD process facilitated by David Cooperrider, more than four hundred leaders, including Anan, created something remarkable. At the opening banquet Anan said, “This is the largest and highest-level gathering of leaders from business, labor and civil society ever held at the United Nations. Indeed, far more of you were determined to attend than we anticipated in our wildest estimations” (Cooperrider, 2005). That dialogic gathering led to ten principles, and a method of organizing, that far surpassed what anyone could have initially imagined.
The Global Compact counts approximately 8,000 corporate signatories from more than 140 countries—representing approximately 50 million employees, nearly every industry sector and size, and hailing equally from developed and developing countries. Each has committed to embed human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption principles into their operations and disclose progress. In order to uphold the initiative’s integrity, thousands of companies have been removed from the Global Compact for failing to meet the annual disclosure requirement. In addition to businesses, over 4,000 non-business signatories play important roles, including holding companies accountable for their commitments and partnering with business on common interest causes. (UN Global Compact, 2014, p. 5)
A Generic Strategic Design Model
While Dialogic OD methods vary considerably, we believe that in practice Dialogic OD practitioners, particularly consultants following a more structured mode, take the following considerations into account in designing events and longer-term strategic process designs.
Help the Sponsors Articulate Their Wants in a Future-Focused, Possibility-Centric Way
Appreciative Inquiry has been particularly influential in moving many Dialogic OD consultants away from framing change processes as problem solving, as is often the case in Diagnostic OD. Instead, Dialogic OD consultants will often work with the sponsor and steering committee to identify the desired direction or hoped-for outcomes of a change effort, and craft this into an image that is likely to capture the interest and energy of those needing to be engaged in the change process. Typically, the outcomes are future focused, in that they identify or imply a desired future direction rather than identifying what is wrong with the present, and they are “possibility-centric” in that they invite the search for possibilities for realizing a more desired future rather than focusing on a particular, specific solution. Sometimes these desired directions or outcomes will be described as themes, sometimes as questions to be answered. Chapter 5 argues that these outcomes are most effective at supporting transformational change when they are generative images.
Coach the Sponsors in How to Nurture Emergent Change
Because Dialogic OD works on assumptions of emergence and social construction—very different from the planning and controlling image most leaders have of their work—sponsors may need to be invited or coached to be less controlling and more self-reflexive about what they must do to nurture emergent change. Dialogic OD assumes that every change situation is unique and that because of the complexity of human meaning making, what worked in one group or organization may not work in another. Because every interaction is ripe with possibilities for new meaning making, cause and effect cannot be predicted ahead of time; so there is no point in trying to identify and converge on the “right” changes. The leader needs a vision of how the right people will get into the right conversations, not a vision of the future. Chapters 6 and 7 offer more in-depth discussions of the differences in premises between emergent and planned change. From the outset, sponsors need to understand that the point of dialogic events and processes is not to identify, agree upon, and then implement the change. Rather, it is to unleash, catalyze, and support the multitude of motivations and ideas among participants, in the service of transforming the group or organization in the desired direction.
If the sponsors cannot understand the need for, and have faith in, a more open-ended dialogic process, then that is a good signal that another form of OD may need to be employed—while leaving open the possibility that a dialogic approach may be feasible at a later date (Gilpin-Jackson, 2013). It may also be true that any organizational transformation will require a personal transformation of some sort by the leaders of the organization, who will undergo a personal learning journey during the Dialogic OD process. This issue is taken up in detail in Chapter 11 on transformative learning.
Identify and Include the Necessary Community of Stakeholders—Emphasize Diversity
Increasingly, practitioners are emphasizing the need to include all the stakeholders who will be affected by the change for successful Dialogic OD events. This can result in events with large numbers of people—from hundreds to thousands. What differentiates them as Dialogic OD from other Large Group Interventions is the mindset behind their practice and the choices that get made as a result. Holman (2013, 22) counsels us to “look beyond habitual definitions of who and what makes up a system. Think of protesters outside the doors of power. What would happen if they were invited into an exploratory dialogue? Making space for different perspectives while in a healthy container opens the way for creative engagement.” Weisbord and Janoff (2010) use the acronym ARE IN to define who ought to be at dialogic events—those with authority, resources, expertise, information, and need—to which Axelrod (2010) adds those opposed, and volunteers, that is, anyone who wants to come. Chapter 10 on entry, Chapter 13 on hosting containers, and Chapter 14 on working with multiple constituents provide more perspectives on this issue.
It is not enough to identify the right people; they have to be invited to events in a way that attracts them to come. Sponsors may have the power to compel some people to attend, but probably cannot compel all the people who are key stakeholders of the changes to be made. These stakeholders’ willingness to participate will be influenced by the way the events are framed and the way they are invited—a key job of sponsors. In emphasizing the need to “widen the circle of engagement,” for example, Axelrod (2010) describes using small group meetings between events to expand participation.
Design and Host the Conversations
One of the things that differentiates Dialogic OD methods is the suggestions they offer for how to design and host conversations. Whether it is small groups or large communities, these methods may involve one or a series of events. Until now the absence of a coherent understanding of Dialogic OD has led its practitioners to be mainly known by the particular intervention they use. As a result they are often viewed as providers of Appreciative Inquiry or Open Space or World Café (and so on), and employed by organizations to run those processes rather than to consult at a strategic level to an entire change effort. Perhaps the emerging narrative about Dialogic OD as a distinct approach will help them avoid this trap.
One area of agreement in dialogic practice is the need to ensure the capacity of participants to engage in inclusive conversations before getting to the substance of the change. Bushe (2002) describes this as the need to shift a group, large or small, from a preidentity state to a postidentity state—that is, from a state in which people do not identify with the group to one in which they do. Hosting, discussed in more detail in Chapter 13, emphasizes the need for “welcoming,” particularly when groups are highly diverse (Brown and Issacs, 2005). This is further elaborated in Holman’s (2010) description of creating opportunities for individual expression and connection. When events involve large groups, they are designed and hosted so that people can interact productively without the need for small group “facilitation” (Weisbord, 2012). Often this is accomplished by sequencing a series of conversations organized through specific questions, as discussed in Chapter 12, though it can also involve more self-organizing processes in which participants identify the conversations they want to have, as in Open Space (Owen, 2008).
An image common among Dialogic OD practitioners who design and host dialogic events is that of the “container.” “As hosts, our work is not to intervene, but rather to create a container-hospitable space for working with whatever arises” (Holman, 2013, p. 22). Issacs (1999) and Bushe (2010) have written explicitly about containers, but the concept is still evolving. Chapter 13 focuses on “hosting and holding” containers, offering models such as the developmental stages containers go through and advice such as one should construct containers allowing for varying levels of engagement, so that people aren’t simply “in” or “out.”
Convert Possibilities into Actions
At some point during an event or sequence of events the Dialogic OD process shifts from inquiry and conversations to initiating action. This marks a shift toward “harvesting” what has emerged and extending it into more tangible acts that lead to organizational change. The process of harvesting and extending might look like agreements among participants to act differently, along with the new and different things people say and do with others back on the job in the following days. Some dialogic practices focus on a further inquiry process at this point—reflecting back on and making sense of the variety of conversations and experiences that have occurred during events, to provide guidance for moving forward (e.g., Holman, 2013; Nissen and Corrigan, 2009). Some focus on getting people ready and launching new initiatives that have been stimulated by the events (e.g., Bushe, 2013b; Cooperrider, 2012). Practice varies considerably among Dialogic OD practitioners, and is affected by the intentions behind the initiative as well as the expectations and culture of the group or organization. At one extreme are designs that rely on improvisational actions by small groups committed to implementing their proposals, with organizational leaders mainly offering their blessing and perhaps some resources. At the other extreme are designs that construct specialized structures and processes, like decision gates, wherein sponsors make commitments to nurture proposals and integrate successful ones into the organization.
As emphasized in Chapter 15, what happens after dialogic events is as crucial as the quality of the events themselves. Leadership is essential not in defining and directing change but in recognizing and celebrating small, important opportunities, working to amplify them into big, important changes, and integrating them into the organization. Transformation in the social construction of reality comes when people make different choices daily at work given the new social realities that emerged during the dialogic event. Specific projects might require more coordinated action among team, organization, or community members, and in some Dialogic OD processes important changes do come from projects that are launched during events. Developing designs for launching, monitoring, and integrating successful experiments can be critical to the long-term impact of a Dialogic OD process.
Closing Comment
In closing, we wish to make clear that Dialogic OD is more than encouraging good dialogues. There will be practitioners, managers, and consultants who are likely to identify with the Dialogic OD label but who do not fully work from a Dialogic OD Mindset. In reading this chapter they will have noticed and may be puzzled by how little emphasis we put on the practice of “dialogue,” the structuring of conversations, working with participants to ensure they hear each other, making it safe for participants to share, actively facilitating interactions, and so forth in our description of Dialogic OD practice. While better communication skills make for better conversations, we think of Dialogic OD as taking people and processes as they present themselves, without too many preconceptions about the “right” way to have interactions. To be sure, an OD consultant needs exceptional communication skills, but the purpose of Dialogic OD is not to replicate those skills in participants (unless, as in the case in Chapter 9, that is the sponsor’s intent). While there are ways to design or encourage inquiry and interactions that make them more likely to result in productive outcomes, we do not think the Dialogic OD Mindset includes specific models or ideas of how people should talk to each other, or the correct kinds of group processes for achieving “dialogue”; nor does it implicitly, if not explicitly, assess people and groups against those standards. Instead, the Dialogic OD Mindset suggests that when allowed or encouraged, methods of conversation, processes of organizing, and ways of leading and following will emerge that are best suited to the immediate needs and contexts of those involved. Focusing on the three underlying change processes (emergence, narrative, and generativity), Dialogic OD practice seeks to tap into the inherent wisdom and motivation among engaged participants to tackle adaptive challenges and wicked dilemmas that require significant change.
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